LIVERPOOL CRUISED INTO the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time in nine years 5-0 on aggregate over Porto, despite settling for a goalless draw in an uninspiring last 16, second leg at Anfield on Tuesday.
Sadio Mane inflicted most of the first-leg damage on the Portuguese league leaders with a hat-trick and came closest to breaking the deadlock with a first-half effort that came back off the post.
With the job done three weeks ago, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp could even afford the luxury of starting top-scorer Mohamed Salah and club-record signing Virgil van Dijk on the bench with one eye on Saturday’s vital visit to Manchester United in the Premier League.
Klopp’s men have made a habit of fast starts in Europe this season, but took time to warm to their task with the German having made five changes in all from the side that beat Newcastle at the weekend.
It took 17 minutes for the hosts to threaten when Joe Gomez’s cross was acrobatically flicked towards goal by Mane, but looped just over the bar.
Porto coach Sergio Conceicao made 10 changes from the first leg, but top-scorer Vincent Aboubakar was one of those to come back into the side having missed the first leg through injury.
And the Cameroonian showed what Porto missed in their heaviest-ever European home defeat as he got in behind the Liverpool defence only to be denied by Loris Karius rushing off his line to mop up the danger.
Mane was inches away from his fourth goal of the tie on the half-hour mark when he controlled James Milner’s lofted pass on his chest before smashing the inside of Iker Casillas’s far post.
Dejan Lovren then headed narrowly over as Liverpool threatened to raise the pulse of an understandably more subdued Anfield than is customary on a European night.
Casillas was given a standing ovation by the Liverpool fans in the Kop end as he took to the field after the break on his record 167th and possible farewell appearance in the Champions League.
However, that was one of few moments that got the home fans off their feet as Liverpool settled on their substantial lead.
Milner sliced a good opening wide just two minutes into the second half, whilst at the other end Karius was stretched to turn Majeed Waris’s shot behind.
Roberto Firmino had one clear chance to add to his seven Champions League goals this season when his shot was blocked by Porto captain Felipe before the Brazilian was protected by Klopp for the weekend as Danny Ings was introduced for the final half hour.
Salah was given 15 minutes to find the winner when he replaced Mane.
The Egyptian had one opportunity to extend his scoring streak to eight straight games, but Casillas smothered his low effort.
And the Spanish veteran made his best stop of the night two minutes from time to deny Ings and hold onto his clean sheet.
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“upset the natural flow of the game”. can’t agree with that. you have lads throwing themselves on the ground left, right and centre which is far more disruptive in my opinion, especially in the bigger knockout games when they’re a goal up. sure they had water breaks in some matches in the last World Cup which went by almost unnoticed. time for the video ref.
Also it should be easy enough to moderate the use of video techology. I.e limit the number of times it can be referred to in a game…. each coach can call for a video replay three times and no more!
About time but I would rather see it use for cheating and simulation
You can nearly tell by looking up that Barcaloni19 page on youtube that you would get 9/11 conspiracy clips in the suggested videos. Short memories, he seems to forget the second leg at Stamford Bridge only the year before.
All club have been stung over the years by bad decisions but when it’s costs a team a trophy/promotion or indeed regelation it can be hard to swallow .
If ever there was a club that benefited from extremely dubious refereeing, Barcelona is it.
The farce at Stamford Bridge
The Thiago Motta red card with Busquets peeking through his hands to see if he could stop rolling around yet
Van Persie’s second yellow for playing the ball after as the whistle was blown
And then from this tie, the Suarez non-red, the Iniesta non-red and the Torres sending off.
You lost all credibility when you said Torres was harshly sent off last week.
In that inter game the goal Barcelona got was actually offside so if they had video ref back then that goal wouldn’t have stood, and also the ridiculous motta red card would never have happened
They weren’t in the video so clearly didn’t happen.
3 for the manager is too many. Its been in hockey for a few years at the high level and only now is it really a very good system without issue of bias or unfair advantage. Currently, each team has one video refferral, which they keep if they are proven correct or in the case of “no decision possible”. When the team refers and they are mistaken, they lose the referral. Teams must refer immediately after the incident (within 3 seconds i think) and it has to be close to a goalscoring event (can’t be at midfield). It goes upstairs to a ref who avails of different camera replays. There are still instances when cameras don’t pick up the incident or it is unclear what happened although football games have so many cameras this might not be an issue. Also, there are still complaints to referees even after video referrals! In football there would be issues surrounding interpretation – handball/ball to hand for instance but these would simply have to be cleared up by rules committees. I think aswell that referees own referrals would be useful but in rugby these are taken too much in my opinion. The system works well, there is usually 3 or 4 refferals a game and they are swift and exciting. I think it would work. 6 a game would be hefty and would lead to a scenario whereby there would be a refferal by a winning defensive team over a free kick the last minute purely to waste time/stop momentum type of thing. This is not attractive to see.
Trust no one
Didn’t need last night to prove this. Just the last 30 years of diving, cheating, handballs etc etc etc